Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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74. To ask the Minister for Finance the expenditure by the National Assets Management Agency's on providing social housing and on providing offices to date, by year; and the agency's projected annual spend on social housing and offices in 2016 and in 2017. [6304/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised that to date, NAMA has committed over €260 million in making properties available for social housing through local authorities and approved housing bodies.  This comprises €100m in capital expenditure to complete houses and apartments and €160m to acquire properties through NARPS, NAMA's social housing special purpose company, for onward leasing to local authorities and approved housing bodies.  

As the Deputy will be aware, NAMA made over 6,635 residential properties available to the Housing Agency for social housing.  This represented the totality of vacant residential property in NAMA's original acquired portfolio that was potentially suitable for social housing.  Local authorities, through the Housing Agency, confirmed demand for 2,531 of the 6,635 properties made available by NAMA and 2,042 of these properties have been transferred to local authorities and approved housing bodies for social housing.  Future expenditure by NAMA under this initiative will be determined as local authorities and approved housing bodies enter into contracts to buy or lease remaining properties for which demand has been confirmed.

NAMA is, as the Deputy is aware, currently funding the development of new housing in line with its statutory mandate to preserve or enhance the value of its acquired assets.  Since 2014, NAMA has funded the completion of 2,700 new residential property units in Ireland, of which over 2,400 were in the Dublin area.  An additional 3,360 NAMA-funded units are under construction, 2,700 of which are in the Dublin area.  NAMA has indicated that it may fund up to 20,000 new residential units, over 90% of which will be in the Dublin area, by 2020, subject to commercial viability.  In accordance with Part V legislation, 10% of all new housing units funded by NAMA will be made available for social housing.

I am further advised by NAMA that to date, it has advanced over €250m in capital expenditure to facilitate the provision of office space to meet demand from both domestic and FDI employers. 

NAMA also advises that, to date, it has approved approximately €250m for ongoing and future development projects which will facilitate the provision of new office accommodation in 2016 and 2017, primarily within the Dublin Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) planning scheme area.  Of this €250m in approved funding, €37m has been drawn down to date reflecting the stages involved in development projects including, prior to construction, planning, design and tendering and the phased nature of construction projects.  NAMA has estimated that the Docklands SDZ development programme will require total funding of €1.9 billion with peak funding up to €500m.  NAMA's contribution to this funding requirement will be determined in accordance with the agreed delivery strategy for each development site in which it has an interest.